Oct 21 Migrant Caravan Continues Toward U.S. Border, Did Not Stop

President Trump issues a strong warning to Mexican authorities that if the migrant caravan from central America is not stopped, there would be consequences. In response, Mexico sent agents to the southern border to contain the movement of people, though unsuccessfully.

The number of migrants in the caravan is now estimated to be at five thousand as many are joining the group.

The migrants, who said they gave up trying to enter Mexico legally because the asylum application process was too slow, gathered Saturday at a park in the border city of Ciudad Hidalgo. They voted by a show of hands to continue north en masse, then marched to the bridge crossing the Suchiate River and urged those still on it to come join them.

The decision to re-form the migrant caravan capped a day in which Mexican authorities again refused mass entry to migrants on the bridge, instead accepting small groups for asylum processing and giving out 45-day visitor permits to some. Authorities handed out numbers for people to be processed in a strategy seen before at U.S. border posts when dealing with large numbers of migrants.

But many became impatient and circumventing the border gate, crossing the river on rafts, by swimming or by wading in full view of the hundreds of Mexican police manning the blockade on the bridge. Some paid locals the equivalent of $1.25 to ferry them across the muddy waters. They were not detained on reaching the Mexican bank.